Portrait photograph of Willard Motley (1909-1965).
[New York: [June 13, 1947?].
Price: $1,500.00
About the item
Half length portrait of the author in coat and tie, Gelatin silver print. 1 vols. 24 cm x 18.2 cm. (approximately 9-1/2 x 7-1/8 inches). Photographer's blind stamp at lower left, pencilled note on verso giving the name of the subject. Provenance: The estate of Saul Mauriber, Van Vechten's assistant and executor of Van Vechten's photography estate and the compiler of PORTRAITS: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF CARL VAN VECHTEN (1978).
Item #222361
Portrait of the author in the full flush of success. It was in 1947 that Chicago author Willard Motley (1909-1965) published his first novel, Knock on Any Door, which was both a critical and popular success, and which was eventually made into a movie (starring Humphrey Bogart ) in 1949. Unlike other Afro-American authors of his day, Motley deals with the overwhelming forces of poverty as depicted in the transformation of a poor Italian-American from altar-boy to armed robber to murderer.
Inscribed in the image, " For my friend Saul / thanks for your friendship - and for liking my book - and for holding the lights. / Your friend / Will"
